Page 118 of Zane

“I’d like that,” Kelsey said, a soft smile on her face.

“Then it’s a date.” Zane chuckled. “Whenever we settle on the date.”

As he waited for the carafe to fill, Zane took two mugs from the mug tree and set them on the counter. He got the cream from the fridge, finding it so much easier to move now that he was just in the boot, and he’d ditched the crutches.

Once the carafe was about half full, Zane pulled it out and filled their mugs. He quickly added cream and sugar to both, then stirred them before he slid one across the counter to Kelsey.

Searching for another topic to keep their conversation going, Zane asked, “Did I ever talk to you about being adopted?”

Lee had said something earlier about birth families, and Zane wondered if he and Kelsey had discussed the fact that he was adopted.

Kelsey looked at him from where she sat, her mug cupped in her hands. “You did talk about it a few times, but the only time we discussed it at length was in relation to Lee.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was when Lee’s girlfriend broke up with him because he didn’t know about his birth family. I wasn’t around when that happened, but you told me about it when you heard from Lee that he had started dating Rori.”

“How did I feel about what had happened to Lee?” he asked. He’d remembered Lee telling him about his girlfriend not being happy with his lack of knowledge about his past, but he didn’t recall their actual breakup.

“You thought he should have broken up with her right away when she first said she had an issue,” Kelsey said. “And that you would never stay with a woman who had a problem with you being adopted.”

“So, I’m assuming you didn’t?”

Kelsey shook her head. “I didn’t have a problem with that.”

“Did I tell you why I never sought out information about my own birth parents?”

Kelsey lowered her mug to the counter. “You said that since the Halversons hadn’t adopted you as a newborn, likely the circumstances of how you’d come to them had been bad. You didn’t really want to know because you didn’t think that information would bring anything good to your life.”

That was what he’d always felt. Plus, he’d been happy with the Halversons and didn’t feel like he’d needed another family. It didn’t sound like he’d told Kelsey that, which was more proof of the distance he’d ended up with from his family in recent years.

“Is that how you feel about it now?” Kelsey’s brow furrowed. “Or then?”

Zane knew what she was saying. “I do feel that way, and I’ve always viewed the Halversons as the only family I need.”

“I don’t blame you for feeling that way.”

Zane lifted his brows. “You say that even though they haven’t exactly been warm and welcoming to you?”

“I’m a stranger to them,” she said with a shrug. “But even so, I can see how much they love and care for you.”

“They’re coming around,” he told her, happy that she’d noticed his family’s love for him.

“I can see that.”

He still didn’t one hundred percent understand his family’s reaction to Kelsey. Nothing he’d learned about her seemed to warrant that reaction. Maybe it really had just been them being upset because they’d eloped.

Though he still didn’t like it, at least they were making an effort. He was just glad that Kelsey and Rori had bonded the way they had, because at least she had someone in the family she felt comfortable with.

“Do you think much about the future?” Zane asked, lifting his mug to take a sip.

Kelsey froze. The only things on her body that moved were her eyelids as she blinked rapidly. After what felt like forever, she shifted the mug on the counter in front of her.

“Uh… I do think about it, yes.”

“A lot?”

Kelsey shrugged. “I suppose. At least once a day.”

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